Angie's POV
"I don't mind, really," Bernard shrugged, "I have extra scarves and coats, so you won't get too cold."
I thought for a moment, trying to make up my mind. It was very cold outside, but he did seem sincere about wanting me to stay longer. I finally decided to stay and nodded with an eager smile. I would deal with Judy teasing me later.
"Okay, I'll stay longer," I reached around him and grabbed the leftover bottle of wine from behind his back. "But I'm going to get you talking." I cracked a mischievous smile.
"Angie," Bernard looked at me with a sigh, "We can talk without that, I don't want a headache in the morning."
"Bernard, when is the last time you've actually had fun with a friend? I'll give you an aspirin if you get a headache tomorrow." I nudged his arm.
He looked between me, the ground, and around the room a few times. "What would your father say?" Bernard crossed his arms, looking at me with an unsure expression.
"My "father" was a party animal at my age, trust me, I'm much more tame." I chewed on my lip as I was thinking, which was becoming a bad habit. "You won't get in trouble if that's what you are worried about, my lips are sealed!"
Bernard thought hard and sighed again. He seemed more to be trying to fight with himself than trying to give me an excuse. "Just- go sit down, won't you?" He finally snapped, although I knew it wasn't a rude type of snapping. He was the same way at the waterpark when he also had a hard time making up his mind, and I was beginning to see him act that way when he had to make a decision with his emotions rather than his head. That being said, I gave a victorious smile and wandered into the living room, with the bottle in hand.
Nina followed me in, looking at me questioningly as I sat back down on the couch. Perhaps for me, it was because I had two glasses already, because looking back, I didn't normally have that type of boldness. I think Bernard realized this, and it contributed to part of his hesitance.
Bernard came in a few moments later and sat down next to me. Using hand motions to get his point across, he said, "Okay, we need some rules. Number one, I am not going to get drunk, I do not think that is a good idea. Rule two, you get one more glass, but I also don't want to see you full on drunk either, so don't get your hopes up on finishing this bottle. Rule three... I get to choose not to answer questions if you start digging too much. Rule four-" He paused, "I don't actually have a rule four right now, but if I come up with one, I expect that one to be followed also."
"Okay okay," I laughed. "That's enough rules, we aren't working, remember?"
"I won't agree to this unless you follow them." Bernard crossed his arms, leaning back into the couch and keeping his eyes on me. "I know what rule four is," He added, "Rule four is that you follow the rules."
"Okay deal, deal. I promise!" I tapped my feet on the ground impatiently.
"Well what did you want to talk about then? You seemed so adamant about me talking." Bernard looked at me.
"Tell me more about yourself," I said, "What did you want to do before you turned into an elf? What was your family like? And why do you have an east coast accent?" I pulled my feet up onto the couch and sat with my legs crisscrossed under me.
"I- okay that's a lot," Bernard filled up his glass and shook his head.
"Just start with the first question, what did you want to do before you turned into an elf?"
Bernard thought for a minute, "My dad was a blacksmith, and so was my grandpa. I was the oldest son, so he would have trained me to follow in his footsteps. I wanted to become an artist though, I loved to paint." He crossed one leg over the other as he talked, "There was a painter in our village who was going to take me on as an apprentice, but my father found out and immediately put me into blacksmithing instead and didn't allow me to go out anymore. When I became an elf, they didn't give me a year to stay home like we did for you. Back then, there was much more suspicion about black magic, so I was brought to the North Pole the night I was chosen for my safety. My parents and grandparents all thought I ran away to be an artist... if only they knew." He laughed, a little sad sounding.
I sat there listening to him. I couldn't imagine being swept up here unexpectedly, especially as young as he was. At least I got my dad here too, where Bernard was all alone in a new place.
"What was your next question? My family?" He glanced at me, "My father looked a lot like me, he had dark hair and eyes, but he was rather short and stocky. My mother had curly blonde hair and hazel eyes... I got her nose." Bernard smiled softly, "I had nine siblings, there was five boys, including me, and five girls, and we all looked pretty much the same, at least the hair," He picked up one curl and pulled on it so that it bounced back into place. "My name was actually "Bernardo", not "Bernard", but I changed it sometime after a moving here. It was my father's name and my grandfathers, and his father and so on. They always talked about how I needed to name my first son Bernardo too, but we can see how well that turned out," He chuckled. There was a hint of solemness to his voice, even though he was smiling. It was apparent that talking about them was a little emotional.
"Do you think you will?" I asked, "If you do have a son one day?"
Bernard shrugged, "Maybe, but I doubt that will happen. The me having kids part," He laughed, "And if I do have a son, another Bernard is the last thing the North Pole needs... maybe as a middle name?"
"You don't think you'll want kids?" I raised an eyebrow. Not that it was any business of mine to know, perhaps I was just as nosey as my brother, but if he answered these types of questions for Charlie, my curiosity told me he might answer them for me.
"It's not that I don't want them, I just- I'd need to find a partner... I'd want a wife- and I don't know." He cleared his throat, and I started feeling a little bad about digging so much. "I don't think there's anyone that would even think of me that way, and I'm too much of a loner that I don't think that I'll find someone on my own." He glanced away, his cheeks turning a little bit red. He almost seemed a little surprised in himself that he was telling me all of this.
"You might be surprised, you do have a lot of people rooting for you," I nudged his arm, referencing the hoards of middle-aged lady elves who have been trying to set him up for ages.
"Oh I know, that's part of the problem!" Bernard remarked with a hint of annoyance, not at me, but at the gossipers. I understood him completely though, relationship rumors tended to not make me want to pursue a relationship. It made things more exhausting to navigate through.
"You mentioned that your family was Italian, right?" I changed the subject, not wanting to continue to pressure him on his personal life, pouring myself another glass as I talked. "Where in Italy?"
"Sanmarinese technically," He responded, "But it's easier to say Italian most of the time." He shrugged.
"Why don't you have an Italian... or Sanmarinese accent then?" I was actually very curious about this.
Bernard shrugged, "You know, Elves pick up on languages really quickly, we need to in order to understand any child in the world. Our last head elf I worked vacationed in New York, so I guess I picked it up from him... I never really thought about it that hard."
"Interesting..." I said thoughtfully. It made sense. "I'll get to learn any language?"
"Yeah, our brains are wired differently than humans. Words seem to stick more. Especially if you are going around the world every Christmas and talking to people, you'll pick up on things almost immediately."
"Will I learn to talk to animals?" Nina had popped up on the couch again making some cute chattery noises, so I looked at him with a hopeful grin.
"No. Not unless we start Christmas for animals." Bernard laughed.
"I'll have you know my childhood dog got presents labeled from Santa!" I responded. It was true, there would be bones and squeaky toys that would say "To Shaggy, From Santa."
"Okay, we didn't do that," Bernard had an amused grin at my surprise. "How would we determine naughty or nice animals?"
"It's pretty easy to know! There are definitely naughty and nice animals!"
"You can take that up with your dad once he becomes Santa, but I'm not sure how he's going to feel about checking off another list of animals," He chuckled, shaking my head at my determination to make this a thing.
"I think I will! And if he doesn't want to have Christmas for all animals, I'll do that list!" I felt my voice rising slightly. "Come on Bernard, you are the head elf, you could have been doing this for years!"
"You know what Angie, if you want to make an animal department in the workshop I won't stop you," Bernard raised his hands in sarcastic surrender. "Although I think you might have a different opinion on it once your head is a little clearer," he tapped his glass with his finger. "There are about ten times the amount of animals across the world than there are children,"
"They deserve it," I whispered quietly, "And my mind is perfectly clear."
"Alright, alright," Bernard stood up and stoked the fire that was trying to go out. "All I mean is that you weigh maybe 60-80 something pounds now, so it really doesn't take that much."
That was something I didn't consider completely, I didn't think that things like that would change, but it made sense. Bernard chuckled at my lack of words.
"You aren't in trouble Angie, all this comes with the learning part of being an elf. You'll get used to these types of things, and it will eventually become natural."
I pursed my lips, thinking for a moment. "I just feel dumb that I didn't think of that."
"It really isn't a big deal, don't think too hard about it. Why don't you keep asking me questions?" Bernard said.
I put my wine glass down, not sure what I would share if I did have more, after all, two and a half glasses were a lot for someone of my size. I asked the first question that popped into my head. "Do the snow globes act as mood rings?"
"Mood rings?" He looked at me, "I mean... I suppose they sort of do."
"Mine will have it's regular snowman in the middle, but if I touch it, it will usually start glowing a color. I'm not sure what they all mean though."
Bernard walked back over to the shelf and grabbed his. For a split second, I saw it glow pink, but he shook it once he saw me looking, and it turned yellow.
"Here take this for example..." He held it out. "It's gold right now, which means I am content. The brighter the color is, the more strongly you feel that emotion, and the more dim, it will be less."
"That looks yellow," I pointed out, "Gold is more shiny,"
His snow globe turned bright yellow. "No, that's totally gold," Bernard glanced away, his cheeks a little pink.
"If I hold your globe, will it read how I am feeling? Or is it just our own globes that do that to us?"
Bernard shrugged and held it out to me. "Be careful," He added and kept one hand over it so that I wouldn't drop it this time.
For me, the snow globe turned bright gold, and Bernard smiled.
"You must really like me," He teased.
"Or I really like Nina." I gave a sarcastic smile and handed the snow globe back to Bernard.
It was a light pink again, and this time he knew he couldn't hide it, but he tried shaking it again anyways.
"What does... what does that one mean?" I raised a curious eyebrow.
"I think it's broken, I don't know why it keeps doing that." Bernard responded while aggressively shaking the orb. It began turning a slight shade of rose gold, trying to turn gold, but something was holding it back.
"But what does it mean?" I moved in a little closer and he paused, glanced back over at me and back at the globe, and it turned hot pink.
Bernard made a sound of frustration. "I'm going to get this thing checked out tomorrow. We have a snow globe repair elf in town. I've never seen pink before, but recently it's been popping up and I don't know why!"
"Bernard, what does pink mean!?" I asked for the third time in a row.
"It means love, Angie" He glanced off awkwardly. "You know, it's probably reading my memories with this whole Curtis thing and is taking the wrong thing from it. Maybe it's reading Curtis or something," Bernard continued to give more excuses for why his snow globe might be turning pink.
It was in the back of my mind what Judy had said about Bernard's "fondness", but I didn't want to bring it up right now. I was beginning to realize why his snow globe was pink, but it was true, he just really didn't realize. He was in denial. Even if I told him, he wouldn't believe me. I just stared between the globe and Bernard sitting there. It was a little amusing, someone this out of tune with their own emotions that they couldn't even realize when they've begun to catch feelings for someone. I was also so shocked at the same time, I didn't think he would actually feel that way for me, but I couldn't deny the magical snow globe in front of us. I could feel my cheeks turning red, but it didn't bother me this time.
I knew that the snow globe repair elf repaired regular snow globes, not our Santa ones, unless they've cracked. This type of magic didn't break, or at least, that's what Judy told me when she saw mine. Magic can fade or be given to someone else, but it doesn't break like that.
Bernard glanced up and met my eyes that were staring, lost in thought, right at him. This time, we both turned red and glanced away from eachother.
Maybe it was true that there was something between us. It was hard to say, if there was, it wasn't that either of us was seeing very clearly. If there was, it was apparent that some elves around here saw it... Charlie saw it.
I shook my head, I was thinking far too hard about this.
"I hope I didn't make you feel uncomfortable," He said quietly after a moment.
"No, of course not," I turned to look back at him. "I'm not saying it is or isn't, but you don't need to feel embarrassed around me... You know, if it ends up not being broken."
"I think it's broken," He repeated, more firmly. "I've never ever seen this before, so I don't think it would start now... But I do appreciate that," He gave me a small red-faced smile, and stood up, to go put the snow globe away again.
I was growing more tired, but my mind was active and awake. Now all I could think of is how I felt for Bernard, what that would mean for us, and a million other things. To be honest, I didn't know how I felt. I'd never even had a boyfriend before, and only had a crush once in the first grade on my science teacher. I wasn't sure how my feelings were... supposed to feel.
Sure, he was very handsome. In the glowing light of the fireplace, his dark eyes which were normally stern looking, turned a soft brown, with specks of gold and greens mixed in. And he did have nice features, strong brows, and a sharp jaw. His hair of course, even when covered with a hat, would make any girl, or guy by that means, jealous. I knew I was outright scanning him head to toe right now, but he was up stirring the fire and didn't seem to notice. In addition, we did get along really well, now that we weren't at each other's throats all the time like we used to be. I felt like I understood him well, and vice versa, even if at times it seemed like we didn't. He felt genuine and loyal like he wasn't the type of person who would lose feelings easily. Bernard treated Charlie well too, and as much as he and my dad had a love-hate relationship, I could see them growing to be friends eventually.
He walked back over and sat down next to me again, and all at once, as if that was all that it took for me, I felt this strange nervous feeling in my stomach, as if butterflies have decided to make it their home. We sat in comfortable silence for a while, Bernard humming a song quietly. I closed my eyes, intending to rest them for only a moment, but I was listening to the lulling sounds of the fireplace and the song that he was softly singing, because the next thing I knew, I was asleep.
Bernard's POV
If before this moment someone were to ask me if one of these types of magical snow globes could malfunction and break, I would have scoffed right in their faces... In fact, I believe I did do that once when Angie was worried once hers might have cracked from falling off the shelf.
Our globes don't just break. Especially not here, there's too much magic that's alive, keeping the whole North Pole and Workshop running for anything like that to happen. Maybe take them out into the regular world, and sure, they could shatter like any glass, but here, no way.
But this was different.
The first time it happened I thought for sure it had just been my imagination. But it kept happening, over and over, whenever I looked at her.
I never thought magic could do such a thing, be so wrong about something but here it was. Surely it was really mixing up my memories because of Curtis, after all, she was in the middle of that whole rumor so it made sense. At least, that's what I told her. I could not think of a single reason otherwise for it to be turning... that color.
It's not something I thought I'd ever see in my life. I was quite content with the life I was living.
Sure, I told her that'd it'd be nice to have a family one day, but that's something many elves want. I was no different, and if it never happened, which I assumed it would not, I would be fine as well.
I felt her eyes on me as I stood to stoke the fire. It didn't necessarily need to be stoked, but I couldn't seem to get my snow globe to stop flip flopping colors on me unless I was further away.
I furrowed my eyebrows as I thought, trying to think of any other reason or excuse for this to be happening.
I didn't love her in that way, surely. I debated for a second, then shook my head to myself.
I did not love Angie that way.
I glanced back at her, leaning her head on the back of the sofa and blinking slowly as the night grew later. It was later than I thought, and I had fully intended on walking her back. I sat back down for maybe two seconds, humming a song that my mother used to sing to me when I was a child. It snuck into my head unexpectedly, and I felt the words forming on my tongue as I sang it softly under my breath.
I found that I did this sometimes, maybe it was to comfort myself, maybe it was just refreshing memories that would otherwise fade. If anything, it distracted me from the whole civil war going on inside my brain.
I was leaning back, my eyes shut for a moment, but the sound of heavy breathing and the feeling of something hitting my arm made me glance over.
Angie was slumped over leaning her head on my shoulder. She was snoring ever so softly. I sat for a moment frozen, not sure what to do.
Should I bring her back to her room? It was a long walk, but I didn't mind. It might wake her up though, and I didn't want to do that either. She would be warmer and more comfortable if I didn't wake her. I checked my watch, it was midnight. I didn't realize that much time had passed.
I knew I should get up and probably go to bed also, but she was sleeping so soundly, that all I could do was watch. She would probably call me creepy for saying so, but it was almost comforting, she must really trust me to be able to fall asleep that easily right next to me.
Eventually, I stood up very carefully, slowly moving her head to the pillow on the couch so that her neck wouldn't hurt in the morning. She didn't wake up, so I took the blanket from the edge of the couch and draped it across her body.
Was my snow globe actually broken? I was sure it was, but her being here felt so natural. She was beautiful, with her wavy coppery hair flowing off the edge of the cushion, her cheeks slightly tinged pink from drinking a tad bit too much. Freckles covered her face and arms, reminding me of the tiny snowflakes first falling from the sky.
I shook my head after a moment.
"No way," I thought to myself. "That snowglobe is definitely broken."